Where There's Smoke: inspirational romantic suspense (Montana Fire Book 1) by Warren Susan May

Author:Warren, Susan May [Warren, Susan May]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: General Fiction
Publisher: SDG Publishing
Published: 2016-05-31T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 7

Jed just couldn’t be right. Kate wouldn’t let him.

Hang out with these cubbies all you want, but don’t think for a second you can really be their friend.

Except, the longer she worked with Hannah on her landings, the more she watched her roll awkwardly off to hit her shoulder or be dragged away by her chute, the more Jed’s words turned into claws, sank in, and burned.

Kate should have cut her three days ago instead of letting the agony continue until today, Hannah’s last qualifying jump. She jumped like a pro, her positioning perfect, reacting in the tower to every kind of mishap.

She simply couldn’t land.

Hooked into the pigtail that secured her to the plane, Kate kneeled down, her head in the slipstream, watching the jump streamer. The wind took it about three hundred fifty feet, drifting to the east.

“Take us to jump altitude, Gilly,” she said through the coms and felt the plane bank and turn, climbing from fifteen hundred feet to three thousand. She turned to Ned, who would be jumping first, and raised her voice above the roar of the air. “Hook up!”

Ned wobbled toward the front of the plane, holding onto his reserve to keep it from deploying accidentally. Fully loaded with sixty pounds of gear—chute pack, reserve, dangling front pack of personal gear, and letdown rope in his pants pockets—he weighed close to two hundred fifty pounds. Suited up, with the harness strapped tight, Ned could barely stand up, let alone walk. He clipped his static release line to the overhead cable, and crouched next to her. Behind him, the eleven recruits who still survived lined up, fighting for their footing.

“I’ve got three thousand,” Gilly said in her ear.

“Get in the door.”

Ned sat on the edge, his feet in the slipstream. She pointed out the drop zone—easily seen by the orange flags. She could barely make out what she suspected was a very stressed Jed Ransom armed with a clipboard and a video camera.

Sweat trickled down her back. Please, let them get this right.

She tapped Ned’s shoulder, and he launched himself out of the plane. The static cord flapped, tensed, then fluttered back as his chute deployed. She checked—no tangles, and he’d grabbed his toggles.

“Next!”

CJ clipped in, sat down, and seconds later, vanished. Again, the chute deployed. Two down, ten to go.

She worked up the line—Tucker, then one of the Chicago boys who’d miraculously made it this far, then one of the other female recruits, and on down the line. Each one clipping in, sitting in the door, a tap, and they disappeared.

Hannah stepped up last. She clipped on her line, gave Kate a thumbs up. “Remember to roll!” Kate said, but her words were unnecessary. No one understood the stakes better than Hannah.

She tapped her shoulder, and Hannah flung herself out.

The line fluttered, tensed, snapped free, and the chute popped out, filled hard. Hannah soared upward.

Kate leaned back, gave Gilly the all-clear to land. Gilly banked, and for a second, Kate rolled back into the belly of the plane.

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